Dreadnought tcc-3

by Cherie Priest

  In a matter of moments, the three of them were on the platform. The Rebel, lying splayed there, threw up. Mercy, trussed to the bent pole, unbuckled herself with hands that shuddered with exhaustion. Inspector Galeano leaned against the wall of the car, holding his stomach and gasping.

  “Thank you,” she told him.

  The Rebel tried to say thank you as well, but instead threw up again.

  Mercy asked, “You got the rest of them?”

  He didn’t nod, but made a tired shrug and said between gulps of air, “Two of them. Another did not reach the train.”

  The Rebel drew himself up to his quaking, bruised, scraped knees, and using the rail, pulled himself to his feet. He mustered a salute, and the inspector saluted back, parroting the unfamiliar gesture.

  Mercy put a hand out and behind the Rebel, who might yet require a bit of steadying, in her professional opinion. But he held himself straight and wiped off his mouth with one sleeve, using the other to wipe his brow and cheeks as he followed the Mexican inspector into the passenger car.

  They were greeted by Horatio Korman and Captain MacGruder, who were assisting the other two men who’d made it on board.

  Lieutenant Hobbes was bent over one of the wounded Union men, offering comfort or bandaging. Mrs. Butterfield had stopped crying, and Miss Clay was still on point at the window nearby. Cole Byron stood by the forward doors, his dark skin shining with perspiration, and another porter crouched just beyond him, repairing a loosened connector. Morris Comstock was on his feet, and, like several of the other soldiers, was still picking off the undead here and there, though they could see fewer and fewer as the train gathered speed.

  As the pace improved, the snow blew higher and harder around them, and this, too, helped wash the teeming undead away from the battered train and the passengers within it.

  Everything was ice and soot, and gunpowder and snow, and a few dozen heartbeats spread along the train’s length. Most of the windows were gone, and the wind blew mercilessly inside, whipping hair into faces and clothing against bones.

  For a while, no one spoke. Everyone was afraid to talk until the train was moving determinedly enough and the snowplow was kicking the debris high enough that not even the speediest of the monsters could catch them.

  And then, after a few cleared throats, there were words of greeting.

  Shortly thereafter, it was learned that Sergeant Elmer Pope, Private Steiner Monroe, and Corporal Warwick Cunningham were now in their midst, and all three men were exceedingly grateful for the assistance. They made no pretense of bluster. When things might have become awkward, given the circumstances, there instead came a moment of great camaraderie when the three Confederate men stood alongside the Union men and everyone looked out the windows at the retreating, ferocious, thinning hordes of the living dead.

  The sergeant said, “I want you to know, we’d have done the same. Shoe being on the other foot, and all. Whether command liked it or not. We would’ve dealt with that later, but we wouldn’t have left you.”

  And Captain MacGruder said, “I’d hope so.” He didn’t take his eyes away from the window until Inspector Galeano spoke.

  As softly as the atmosphere would allow, the inspector said, “We’re all together in this.” Galeano was a ragged figure, his own uniform singed and seared with gunpowder, and bloodied here and there. His hat was missing and his wild, dark hair was more wild and dark than it should have been, but so was everyone else’s. They were northern and southern, Texan and Mexican, colored and white, officers and enlisted fellows . . . and, come to that, men and women. But the snow and the coal-smoke were finished with them now, and the wind had gotten its way. Their eyes were bloodshot and their faces were blanched tight with cold; and they were all bleak inside with the knowledge of something awful.

  It was a train full of strangers, and they were all the same.

  Inspector Galeano spoke again, and he was hoarse from the blizzard and the shouting. The Spanish consonants were filed sharp in his mouth. He said, “There will be questions. From everyone, everywhere. All our nations will want to know what happened here. And we are the only ones who can tell them.”

  Captain MacGruder nodded. “There’ll be inquiries, that’s for damn sure.”

  Sergeant Pope said, “We were after your gold, and you were after the Chinamen out West. We had a fight between us, fair as can be.”

  “But we won’t get our Chinamen now,” said the lieutenant. “The deeds all went sucking out into the pass someplace when that crazy woman busted out the gold car’s window with a prybar.” He pointed at Theodora Clay, who stood utterly unapologetic. “And the gold . . . I don’t know. I expect there are better uses for it.”

  Corporal Cunningham said, “And Lord knows we’re in no position to take it from you now.” He gave a rueful little smile.

  “We both had our reasons,” said the captain. “Civilized reasons. Disagreements between men. But those things . . .”

  “Those things” was repeated in muttering utterances around the car.

  The Southern sergeant said, “I want all of y’all to know, we didn’t do that. Whatever was done to them . . . we didn’t do it. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life, and I don’t mind telling you, I near shit myself when they started eating my soldiers.”

  “Us either,” said Lieutenant Hobbes.

  And Captain MacGruder clarified, “They aren’t our work either. I’ll swear to it on my father’s grave.”

  General murmurs of agreement and reinforcement made the rounds.

  “As a representative of the government that once . . .” Inspector Galeano sought a word, and didn’t find it. So he tried again. “Those people-those things that aren’t people anymore-they were my countrymen. I can assure you that whatever became of them was no work of ours.”

  The ranger said, “Nor Texas, and that’s a goddamned fact.”

  Anyone could’ve argued, but nobody did.

  But everyone’s innocence having been established, a great round of speculation got under way. If not the North, and if not the South, and if not Texas or Mexico . . . then who? Or, God help them all, what if it were a disease-and there was no one at fault, and no one they could demand an explanation from?

  All the way to Salt Lake City, the passengers and crew of the Dreadnought huddled and whispered, periodically checking themselves in the lavatories for any signs of drying eyes, graying skin, or yellowing membranes.

  And no one found any.

  So Mercy told them everything she knew about the yellow sap, and Inspector Galeano told them about a northwestern dirigible that had crashed in West Tejas, carrying a load of poisonous gas.

  Twenty-one

  The next morning, the Dreadnought pulled what was left of its cargo and passengers into the station at Salt Lake City. Everyone on board looked and smelled like a war refugee.

  All the occupants, including the conductor, his crew, and all the porters, stumbled down from the metal steps and onto terra firma in the Utah territory with a sense of relief that prompted several of the remaining civilians to burst into tears. Chilled beyond the bone, with many of them sporting injuries large and small that Mercy had done her best to patch, everyone was dazed. The train’s boilers cooled and clacked, but its hydrogen valves were all tightened into silence. Its interior was littered with broken glass, bullet casings, and blood. There it sat on the line, abandoned and silent, a husk that-for all its mighty power-looked forlorn.

  Mercy sat on a bench inside the station’s great hall with Ranger Korman, Inspector Galeano, and the three Rebel soldiers. All in a row they watched the people bustle by, coming and going, taking notes and asking the inevitable questions.

  Though they received a few strange glances, no one stopped them to ask why three Confederates had been aboard or why they were being permitted to simply leave; and no one demanded to know what a Mexican inspector was doing there; and no one wondered aloud why a Texas Ranger was this far north and west of his home t
urf.

  This was not America, after all. Nor the Confederacy, or Texas, or Mexico either. So if anybody cared, nobody said anything. There was no war here, Utah’s or anybody else’s.

  Paperwork was sorted.

  New trains were offered.

  All the rattled civilians were sent to their original destinations.

  Theodora Clay and her aunt Norene vanished without a good-bye. Mercy wondered if Horatio Korman ever got his gun back, but she didn’t ask. She was pretty sure that if he’d wanted it, he would’ve seen about retrieving it. Captain MacGruder and Lieutenant Hobbes were assigned to another train and other duties before Mercy ever got a chance to tell them how much she’d appreciated their presence. But she liked to think they knew, and understood.

  In time, someone approached the three southern men and gave them envelopes with tickets, back east and south, Mercy assumed. The soldiers offered quiet parting salutations and tips of their hats and were gone. Inspector Galeano left next, taking his tickets and claiming his seat on a train that would eventually take him to his homeland, where he would have a most amazing story to tell.

  Then it was the ranger’s turn. Horatio Korman stood, touched the rim of his hat, and said, “Ma’am.” And that was all.

  He, too, left her seated on the wide wooden bench, all alone and not quite certain if she was glad for the sudden privacy after so many weeks of being cooped up and crowded . . . or if she was very, very lonely.

  But finally it was her turn, and the conductor of her own train was crying, “All aboard!” on the tracks outside. She squeezed her tickets, climbed to her feet, and met her train.

  It was called the Rose Marie, and it looked nothing like the Dreadnought, which was somehow both reassuring and disappointing. By comparison, the Rose Marie looked like a fragile thing, something that could not possibly make the remainder of the journey-over mountains or around them, across plains and along rivers, for another thousand miles.

  But the little engine with its pristine sleeper cars and shiny steel trim carried her swiftly-at times even more swiftly than the Dreadnought ever did, which was no surprise, since its load was lighter and it was not dragged down with a militia’s fortune in arms and ammunition.

  The rest of the mountain chain passed with a panorama of epic scenery sometimes covered in snow, and sometimes glittering with sky blue lakes of melted ice.

  Mercy did not talk to her fellow passengers much. What would she say?

  Beyond the most necessary pleasantries, she ignored and avoided them, and she was likewise ignored and avoided. Even though she’d cleaned her cloak and dress to the best of her abilities, they still showed bloodstains and tears, and-as she discovered in the washroom one morning-two bullet holes. Her hands were bandaged, a task she’d undertaken by herself and upon which she’d performed a decent job, if not a great one; but her fingers ached all the time as they healed, and the new skin stretched tight and itchy across the places where she’d lost the old.

  The last thousand miles, between Salt Lake City and Tacoma, were exactly as uneventful as the first two thousand had been action filled.

  Sometimes, when she thought she’d go stark raving mad with boredom, she’d remember lying atop the roof of the Dreadnought’s passenger car, the skin of her throat sticking to the freezing metal and her hands all but glued together by ice. She’d recall watching the southern soldiers as they ran, dodging, ducking, between the ranks of the hungry dead, running for their lives. And she imagined the smoke and snow in her hair, and then she considered picking up a penny dreadful or two at the next stop.

  She picked up a total of three, using almost the very last of her cash.

  She even read them. Well, she had the time. And nothing else to do.

  And people tended not to bother a woman with a book.

  After a few days, she checked the newspapers at every stop, looking for some sign that someone-anyone-had made it back and begun to explain what had happened at Provo . . . and the Dreadnought, and the people who’d ridden upon it. But she never spied any mention of any of these things, so she told herself that it must be too soon. Inspector Galeano could’ve never made it back to Mexico yet; Ranger Korman wouldn’t have even hit Amarillo yet; and Captain MacGruder wouldn’t be back at the Mississippi River yet. So she’d be patient, and wait. Eventually, the world would know. Eventually, a newspaper somewhere would have to announce the story and tell it whole, and true.

  Eventually.

  But not while Mercy Swakhammer Lynch made her way to the West Coast.

  In a dull fog of fatigue and apathy she rode through Twin Falls, Boise, and Pendleton. She spent the night in Walla Walla, and in the morning boarded another train, one called the City of Santa Fe. Then, on to Yakima, from whence she sent her final telegram to her final destination, in hopes that the sheriff would be there to collect her, because if he wasn’t, Mercy had no earthly idea what she’d do next.

  Cedar Falls. Kanaskat.

  Auburn. Federal Way.

  Tacoma.

  Mercy exited the train with an upset stomach and a nervous headache.

  She stepped into an afternoon covered with low gray clouds, but the world felt bright compared to the relative shade of the train’s interiors. It was cold, but not exceptionally so. The air was humid and tasted strange-a little tangy, and a little sour with a scent she couldn’t quite place.

  The station was a big compound, but the tracks were not very crowded, and the City of Santa Fe was the only train debarking. Only a few people milled around the station’s edges-the station managers, the engineers, the railmen who worked the water pumps and inspected the valve connections, and the ubiquitous porters . . . though she noticed that they weren’t all black. Some were Oriental, in the same sharp porter uniforms but with hair that was long and braided, and sometimes shaved back from their faces.

  Mercy tried not to stare, but the sight of so many at once amazed and distracted her.

  Her curiosity about the men did not distract her from the unsettling truth of her situation. She was three thousand miles from home, absolutely broke, and possessing virtually nothing but the clothes on her back and the contents of her medical satchel, which had become much depleted over the weeks.

  She stood beside the station agent’s door and tried not to fret about the circumstances. She scanned the face and vest of every passing man, hoping to spot a badge or some other mark that would identify a sheriff.

  So she was rather unprepared to hear, “Vinita Swakhammer?” Because in order to reply, she was compelled to address a smallish woman in her mid-to late thirties. This smallish woman wore pants that were tucked into the tops of her boots and a fitted waistcoat with a badge clipped to the watch pocket. Her jacket was frankly too large, and her brown slouch hat was held aloft by a curly tangle of dark brown hair that was streaked with orange the shade of cheap gold.

  “Sh . . . ,” Mercy began. She gave it another shot. “Sheriff-?”

  “Briar Wilkes,” the other woman said. She stuck out her hand.

  “And you’re . . . you’re the sheriff?”

  She shrugged. “If there’s law in Seattle, I guess it’s me as much as anybody.”

  “I never heard of a woman sheriff before.”

  “Well, now you have,” Briar said, but she didn’t seem to take any offense.

  Mercy imagined it was the sort of thing she answered questions about all the time. She said, “I suppose so. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Anyway, do you have any . . . bags or anything?”

  “No. This is it,” Mercy said. Then she asked quickly, “How did you know it was me?”

  Briar Wilkes cocked her head toward the station’s exit and led the way out. “For starters, you were the most lost-looking person on the landing. You must’ve had a real long trip, coming all the way from Virginia. You ever been out this far west?”

  “No ma’am,” she said. “First time.”

  “That’s what I figured.
And anyway, you’re about the right age, and traveling alone. I didn’t know you were a nurse, though. That’s what the cross on your bag means, right?”

  “Right. I worked in a hospital in Richmond.”

  The sheriff’s interest was piqued. “Smack in the middle of the war, huh?”

  “Yes ma’am. Smack in the middle.”

  “That must have been . . . hard.” Sheriff Wilkes led the way back outside, which put them in front of the enormous building. “We’re going over there, just so you know.” She pointed down the street, where a set of docks were playing host to a small multitude of airships. “I hope you don’t have any trouble flying. I know some folks are afraid of it.”

  “That’ll be fine. How far away is Seattle from here?”

  “Oh, not far. It’s maybe thirty miles to where we’re going. And I can’t believe I didn’t think to tell you right away, but your pa’s doing all right. For a while there, we really thought he wasn’t going to make it, but he pulled through.”

  “Really?” said Mercy, who likewise couldn’t believe she hadn’t thought to ask. It was the whole point of her trip, wasn’t it, finding her father, and seeing him?

  Sheriff Wilkes nodded. “Really. He’s just about the toughest son of a gun I ever did know. Or he’s in the running for that title, that’s for damn sure. I say that, because you’re about to meet one of the other toughest sons of a gun I know. You see that dirigible right there?”

  She indicated a patchwork metal monster that bobbed lazily above a pipe dock.

  Mercy could see the top of it, but not much of the bottom. That bit was blocked out by the dockyard gate, and another, smaller ship. “I see it.”

  “That’s the Naamah Darling. Her captain, Andan Cly, is a friend of mine and your daddy’s.”

  “I didn’t know my daddy had any friends,” she said, then caught herself. “I mean . . . Oh hell, I don’t know what I mean. I haven’t seen him, you know? Not in years. Not since I was a little girl.”

  Briar Wilkes said, “That’s what he told me, and he feels real bad about it. Worse probably than he’s willing to say. But when he thought he was dying, and we didn’t know how much longer we could keep him alive, the one thing he kept asking for, over and over, was to see his little girl.” She gave an ironic laugh. “Course, he was delirious as could be, and I finally figured out that his little girl had to be a grown woman now. And it took us a while to get enough details out of him to track you down. I won’t lie to you, it was a pain in the ass.”